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Everything posted by Xontract

From the looks of it it looks like all you've done is change a bunch of things with no regard to what the effects of those changes would actually be. Most of the stuff just doesn't make sense.
Like Kyrios said...you should have a goal in mind. Interestingly enough, sometimes the less you change at first, the better. It is much easier to use what the game already has as a baseline and build from there. Start with small tweaks to weapon power or defense across the board. Although it depends on what kind of combat you are looking for. Longer battles overall? Easier random battles but a focus on longer, more challenging boss encounters? Just a more balanced experience overall? What i'm getting at is that it is really hard to tell what you are trying to do, all of these changes seem to be all over the place and don't make any sense from a design perspective, well any perspective really.
I will say it seems like you have put some time into this so I would love to hear your thoughts. I am always down to give my input as I have thought about these type of things a lot.
To go off on a tangent...Kyrios talking about HP got me thinking about a good philosophy with regards to damage vs late game boss HP. The biggest problem there is that many attacks can easily do close to 9999 damage, which would kill a boss in 7 hits. This would lead to a problem of making boss battles at the end game hard to balance. I'm not sure if you can code the AI or use any ASM for enemies to go past the 65535 HP limit, but for the sake of this discussion I will assume you cannot.
The best way to approach this from my perspective would be to balance endgame damage to be at least half as low. Not saying there wouldn't be any way to do high damage, but otherwise it seems like it would be too easy to rush down bosses. That being said, I have only played through FFIX once and that was a LONG time ago, so i'm not too familiar with the details on how the end game fleshed out in vanilla.

I guess I've technically had this discussion in the past, but I want to bring it up again because it is relevant. I was thinking of beginning work on my project(A FFVI mod) again. My biggest barrier here however is asking myself "Is what I have made so far going in the right direction?"
I have a lot of core concepts in place, but I'm the only one that has tested anything. The majority of what needs to be finished are the enemies and encounters(I have a lot of the WoB enemies laid out AI wise, but the numbers need tweaked or it won't be playable) which is why I have been playing through everything myself first.
The main problem with asking people to test is that people want a finished product before they play. This is understandable but I'm going to ask everyone anyway if they would be interested in doing some beta testing. If you aren't interested, what would make you interested? I'm confident that I can have the game fully playable up to the end of the 3 scenarios by next weekend. This isn't a lot of the game to test but it is enough to start to paint the picture of what i'm trying to do.
I'm really just looking for feedback either way, so please let me know what you think

I would only think that to be possible if the ID Facebook and Youtube were not also removed. In my opinion Arch is just moving on for his own reasons, which is unfortunate. As someone who had joined ID early on its pretty disappointing but in the end i'm sure the admins will do what's best to either host the archive, make a sister site, etc. The community will live on

I'm with you there. I have a fair amount of custom content added that I believe works correctly because I've already thoroughly tested it. In the WoR I'll probably have a couple areas to add some map and event edits but I've got some stuff done there already as well so that part shouldn't be too bad. I feel like I'm not that far off from being done, but the enemy part is just going to take some time.
Much of that is due to the fact that I've changed a lot of numbers to the point to where I have to individually edit and test each enemy and encounter to make sure it feels right. If I put my mind to it I could probably have WoB fully playable within 2-3 weeks but I tend to underestimate the time it will take or my motivation.
In any case I plan on putting some documentation together as well for when I have a large enough chunk of the game(up to the FC) playable because that feels like the right time for a public beta. Anything before that will just be private to whoever is open to test. Thanks to all that have offered so far btw.

I like this patch a lot and am heavily leaning towards including it in my release. I think it works especially well with a large rage list which is what I am likely going with. Thank you for creating and sharing

I have a question for those who have been following GDQ over the past few years. Is it still as engaging and enjoyable as before? I remember a really great 2-3 years of what looked like a fun event with great runs but for this and the year or two previous to it the events just seem more...flat to me I guess? I enjoy watching people do speedruns but I dunno, GDQ doesn't grab me in the same way it used to anymore.
Part of me thinks it is because the event is more "mainstream" now, and they seem more strict about how they are handling the room. I really enjoyed the smaller, more casual approach where they had a week or so of bonus runs after the main event. It just seem really streamlined and samey to me at this point. Would love to hear what you guys think though.

A thread can be started for discussion about any specific mod that someone wants to talk about already. This negates the need for a specific section to talk about it IMO. It seems like general or development is perfectly acceptable depending on the development status of the mod.

Although I would really want to monster AI, maps, and events, I voted for everything that was marked easy because I feel like at the very least that is a great core to work around. You can do a lot to the game just editing those things, so if the new version has at least those, it is enough while the more difficult things are being worked on.

"But AP, this isn't a gaming thread!"
Music is probably more important to me than my love of gaming. It's something that sticks with me even when I don't feel like gaming. No matter what mood I am in there is something I can see myself listening to.
Much like my taste in gaming, my taste in music has evolved over the years. As I was re-listening to an album I haven't listed to in a while I thought "Wouldn't it be cool to have a thread where we can post what we are listening to?"
More than that, it is a great way to give suggestions to others so that they may take the plunge and try something they haven't before. It's a way to share a part of us, just like we share our thoughts on the various mods here. Plus this is general discussion, so...
Anyway, this is what I have for today. An album that was by far my favorite album through my late teens and early twenties.
Tool - Lateralus holds a special place in my heart but listening to it today makes me realize just how much my taste in music has changed. This is a solid album but just doesn't inspire the awe that it used to.
It is a bit long(It's Tool, after all) and is probably their most serious album which is another reason why it has lost some favor with me.
In the end I recommend it so if you haven't listened to it check it out. I would give it somewhere around a 7.5-8/10.

I am probably being a bit harsh on the album. I like some of the songs like Jambi but it's difficult when I look at Lateralus and think "That is overall on another level" and then I look at Ænima and think that its on another level above Lateralus.
The scores here are objective and would hardly be gauged the same way by everyone but I would say 10k Days is a 6, Lateralus is an 8, and Ænima would be a 10. Give or take a .5 on each score probably, i'm not concrete on it tbh.
A score like a 6 probably doesn't seem that great, but for me it is still positive.

When I think about how long many projects like this one and mine have been in development, I always remember there is also Pandora's Box. That allows me to tell myself that mine hasn't been in development THAT long.

I am going to re-listen to 10k days soon but without doing so my thoughts are that it isn't a bad album per se but compared to the rest of their discography it's a pretty boring album. I guess I felt like there wasn't much new going on? And what was there was far less interesting. That being said, Rosetta Stoned is probably one of my top 5 favorite Tool songs. That one song "saves" the album for me.
I tend to like Tool and Maynard in general when he is less serious so it should come as no surprise that I am into Puscifer as well. I feel like they have already reached their peak though...but I could be wrong.

The only issue in this situation is if you have to end up grinding in order to beat those bosses which in turn would make the story encounters even easier. All in all I feel like if you are going to add difficulty spikes optional content is the best way to do it because it is something the player doesn't have to do.
I haven't played NT so it's difficult to comment on the actual encounters but I like the design choice overall. Ideally you would want to make it so that these were encounters that would be hard your first play-through but as you learned more about things and played through on your second try you could tweak some interesting strategy that doesn't force you to grind.

You are far more knowledgeable than me on the asm aspects but let me know if you ever want any input or help on the lighter content like plot, map editing, AI stuff, etc.
Now that I am thinking about it, have you been able to make any substantial changed to anything related to battle AI? I mean new conditions, or whatnot. For some reason I feel like you have, I know we have had a few general conversations but I can't remember the specifics at the moment

I think it would be pertinent to expand on what is considered a "good" beta. By that I mean "How much of the game should I have done before I release something to the public?"
There are a couple of ways to go about this but I think the rule of thumb is that have as much of the game done as possible. People want to play a finished product so if you only have 1/3 of the game done you will likely get a lot less hits. That doesn't mean you can't release a public beta, but in my experience it might be better to seek out some beta testers and release a non-public version to them to test.
That being said I would love to hear others chime in on this.